Teenager tries to save Darfur 1 T-shirt at a time

Vrinda Agarwal, McClatchy/Tribune newspapersCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Michelle Gloster, 16, is definitely not your ordinary teenager. In these days when teens get all wound up discussing the latest gossip or an upcoming movie release, Gloster takes a glance into the real world and literally "Saves Darfur."

Last May, Gloster, a junior at Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, began an instantly successful Save Darfur Club that made and sold memorabilia, raising funds for the Darfur cause. She and her close friends also sold bracelets and made T-shirts over the summer.

Asked how she became interested in the issue, Gloster says that "being Jewish, I was struck by the similarities between the genocide in Darfur and that of the Holocaust, and I felt compelled to help the victims and become involved in preventing the same degree of tragedy from occurring in Sudan."

Gloster organizes meetings where her club makes bracelets at their houses. For future meetings, the Save Darfur Club members are in the process of designing more T-shirts.

Gloster said that she became interested in the cause when her parents took her to a Save Darfur rally last May on the steps of the state Capitol. She bought a "Save Darfur" shirt and wore it to school the following week, hoping to inspire others to attend such rallies. However, Gloster was shocked when a number of classmates asked her what Darfur was.

She did the research, and informed her classmates about the situation. Gloster told them: "Darfur is a region of Sudan, in Africa, where more than 400,000 innocent people have been killed. In 2003, after years of oppression, two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, challenged the Sudanese government. The government then supplied local militias, which are collectively called the Janjaweed, with arms.

"The government's armed forces support the Janjaweed as it tortures, rapes and murders Darfurians, often destroying whole villages."

She knew right away that she had to educate the students about the genocide.

"I came up with the idea of selling T-shirts not only to raise awareness, but also to raise money to help the victims," says Gloster, eager to help after becoming inspired by the cause.

Gloster also has many goals for her future and for the future of her club, which is attracting lots of attention.

The Save Darfur Club is organizing a Save Darfur Awareness Week to educate the rest of the school and get more people involved in raising money.

Gloster's goals are to educate as many people as possible about Darfur and to raise as much money as possible to help the victims and pressure the Sudanese government to stop the genocide.